The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Workers striking, economy shrinking and Tesco buys Paperchase

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Teachers went on strike. Train drivers and railway workers went on strike for two days, with a day’s rest in between. Civil servants belonging to the Public and Commercial Services Union went on strike, including some who work for Border Force. Firemen voted to go on strike. Nurses and ambulance staff decided to go on strike next week. During a visit to Darlington, Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, told an audience of health workers: ‘I would love, nothing would give me more pleasure, than to wave a magic wand and have everyone, all of you, paid lots more.’ The Commons voted for a bill to impose minimum service levels in some kinds of work during strikes.

The International Monetary Fund said that the UK economy would contract by 0.6 per cent this year. The United Kingdom produced 775,014 cars last year, compared with 1.3 million a year before the pandemic, and fewer than in any year since 1956. Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: ‘It is unlikely that we would have the room for any significant tax cuts,’ in the Budget in March. House prices fell 0.6 per cent from December’s figure, the fifth monthly drop in a row, according to Nationwide. The annual rate of inflation for groceries, including dog food, rose to 16.7 per cent, according to the retail analysts Kantar. Tesco is to close its remaining delicatessen and food counters and cut the jobs of 1,750 team managers in favour of using 1,800 lower-paid workers. It also bought the Paperchase stationery brand, but not its 106 shops.

Nadhim Zahawi was sacked as Conservative party chairman by the Prime Minister, whose independent ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus found that he had breached the ministerial code seven times by failing to disclose that HM Revenue and Customs was investigating his tax affairs.

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